Drink of the Week: Char & Stave Cafe Amaro

As a cocktail connoisseur and devoted coffee drinker, I’ve found plenty to delight in as coffee cocktails continue to grow in popularity. As we explored in our holiday drinks feature, bartenders are experimenting with the ingredient in multiple forms, from concentrates and syrups to the many excellent coffee liqueurs on the market. But less often seen (on U.S. shelves, anyway) is coffee-flavored amaro. So the new Cafe Amaro from Pennsylvania coffee roasters Char & Stave intrigued me.

Founded by the folks behind Pennsylvania’s Bluebird Distilling, Char & Stave describes the business as “coffee made by whiskey people.” Their flagship roast is a bourbon barrel–aged coffee. So it’s unsurprising that their newest release is a spirited duo with a standard coffee liqueur and the aforementioned Cafe Amaro. Using Bluebird Distilling Vodka as the base, the coffee liqueur is infused with Char & Stave’s Arabica beans. To make the amaro, the coffee liqueur sees the addition of citrus and botanicals including cardamom, chamomile, lemon peel, grapefruit peel, and gentian root.

The earthy, chocolatey flavors of the coffee are a natural match with bright and bitter botanicals. And the resulting bittersweet amaro is reminiscent of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. The Cafe Amaro would play well in a Negroni riff. Or try it in any coffee liqueur application where you want to dial up the complexity. Personally, I’d prepare it as a shakerato (simply shake with ice, then strain) for a delightful, one-ingredient digestif cocktail. $39.99, bluebirddistilling.com